Police officers in the city of Uvalde in the state of Texas waited for more than an hour before raiding the two connected classrooms at Rob Elementary School[/B] where an 18-year-old gunman had barricaded himself, even though they knew there were children who were injured but still alive inside, the New York Times revealed yesterday (Thursday).
Based on video,documents and other evidence, the newspaper reported that at least a dozen of the 33 children and three faculty members in the two classrooms were still alive from the moment the shooting began until Border Patrol agents stormed in and killed Salvador Ramos an hour and 17 minutes later.
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The head of the school district's police department agonized, according to video and other documents, over how long it would take for his men to find protective gear and a key to the doors of two classrooms, according to a Times report. "People will be asking why it took us so long," a man believed to be Pete Arredondo can be heard saying in a video from a camera worn by a police officer.
The May 24 attack in Uvalde, a small town in Hill County, west of San Antonio, claimed the lives of 19 children and two teachers. It was the deadliest attack by a gunman inside a school in the last decade. According to the Times, one of the teachers expired in an ambulance. Three children succumbed in the hospitals where they were taken.
This evidence raises nagging questions about whether their lives could have been saved if police officers had intervened earlier. Authorities admitted, though it took several days before they acknowledged it, that 19 police officers waited for about an hour outside rooms 111 and 112 before a Border Patrol intervention unit finally moved in and killed the gunman, a high school student armed with an assault rifle.
According to authorities, Mr. Arredondo decided to wait, not to immediately send officers to storm in because he felt as though the immediate threat to the children had diminished after the initial barrage of gunfire. Two officers suffered minor injuries from bullets fired by Salvador Ramos when they tried to reach one of the classrooms. No further attempt was made before about 40 minutes had passed.
Stephen McGraw, head of the Texas Department of Public Safety, stressed that the officers' decision to wait was "the wrong decision," also admitting that at least two female students trapped inside made desperate phone calls, whispering, to 911 - the 911 number - begging for help. It is unclear whether Mr. Arredondo and other police officers at the school were informed of the calls, according to the Times report. However, footage obtained by the newspaper reveals that at some point, they knew that not all the victims in the classrooms were dead.
Ruben Ruiz, one of six uniformed members of Mr. Arredondo, rushed to the scene to tell his colleagues that his wife, Eva Mirelles, had called him, was injured but still alive, from inside one of the classrooms where the gunman stormed. She later succumbed to her injuries. Mr. Arredondo declined to make a statement to the newspaper.
Source: Proto Thema
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